Story:Nobody's Safety Guaranteed/Intermission 6
I wake from my dreams and I am alone. For several moments, I lie still, eyes closed, hands limp on the sheet that covers me. All I remember is blackness – endless, voiceless, inscrutable. I remember drowning and reaching out to no one. I had been so alone… There are nightmares hidden beneath the surface of that void. It stretches out, a perfect sheet of black water, impenetrable to my gaze. And yet I know that beneath it, a horror that I cannot name roils and waits for me. My fear is great, but the darkness is unbearable. I open my eyes. Searing white, after all that darkness, hurts my eyes. I force myself to stay still, not daring to wipe away the pained tears that form immediately. Slowly, features define themselves out of the brilliance. The walls of my room. I used to find their bareness so comforting. Now, they remind me that I am alone. No more weeping. No more cries for help. My mind is curiously hollow, containing only me. I slip out of the bed. For some reason, I am expecting pain, but there is only a pinpoint sting in the middle of my lower back that fades quickly into an ache. Automatically, I begin to walk towards Deng’s room. There is no reason for me to; I don’t think I even want to. Perhaps it is because it is the only option available to me. Her voice is better than no one’s. She, at least, can tell me why. She is sitting at her desk, back straight in her chair, a phone held stiffly to her ears. So focused that she does not even notice my entrance. Her eyes are red, as if she has been crying. I do not understand what her conversation is about. “Sir, I assure you that you’ll have a report within a week. My priority at the moment is to limit the damage. I’m sure you would agree this is ideal.” Her lips tighten as she hears the hidden correspondent’s reply. “No. I will not terminate the Experiment. If – when – it succeeds, it will save us far more in terms of savings and lives than it has ever taken.” The person on the other end speaks for a long time. Several times, I think Deng is about to speak, but she bites herself back. Finally, she says, “Give me time. I demonstrated to you that I can stop the deaths from happening almost immediately. That should be enough to reassure you that I have control.” The following words are so sharp that I can hear them indistinctly from where I stand in the doorway. Deng’s face stills. “Very well,” she says. There is no emotion in her voice or expression as she puts the phone down. It is those curiously expressionless eyes that examine me now. This, more than anything, paralyses me, even though instinct that I cannot explain tells me to run now. Deng has always been hard to read, but I'' know how to do it. I always have. We’ve known each other for so long, how could I not? But I cannot read her now. “Will You come and sit here?” she asks abruptly. Hesitantly, I make my way over to her. Just as if nothing has happened between us, she swings me up onto her desk. She stares at me without saying anything. For once, Deng doesn’t seem to know what to say. “Why did You do it?” she finally asks. “Do what?” I reply, puzzled. This isn’t what I expected at all. “Forty-nine Experiments have died over the last twenty-four hours.” The news is like a wave of the black water swamping me. For another heartbeat, I am drowning, lost in the cold. In my sleep, forty-nine of the children had died? And I knew nothing of it at all? I reach, within and out of me. Calling. Nothing but silence. “They’re gone.” My voice sounds small and feeble. I am only a child again. Deng looks at me, and suddenly that incomprehensible expression reveals itself. She is afraid. “What have You done?” she whispers. “I haven’t-” Flashes. The surface of the black lake bubbles, revealing glimpses that boil to the top and then submerge again. It was I that had cried out. My despair swelling up and enveloping theirs. We wept together. My pain that cried out. We begged for it to end. My hands, flung out to Kai, showing him where to find me. We lashed out as one. I lost him to the wave of blackness. Deng holds me as I cry, my head awkwardly resting on her shoulder, tears soaking into the whiteness of coat. Ruining its purity. As I have ruined them all. We tremble, together, and I wonder if it is the shaking of her body or mine that rocks us. “It’s not your fault,” she keeps repeating. Like a mantra, for both of us to believe. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine. You can’t blame the tool for the failure of the creator.” Deftly, she takes a tissue to clean my face. “Why did You do it? Was it because You were angry with me?” “No!” The refutation bursts out from me. How could Deng think that of me? The truth spills from my lips before I know it, “It’s what they wanted. They couldn’t bear living anymore and I gave in. I gave them what they wanted.” “You must not do this again. You must be better than that. Better than emotion and pain, as hard as it is.” She tilts my chin to look up at her, and her tone is somewhere between gentle and firm. “I know You are better than this. That’s what it means to be a parent.” “I have to face it again? No!” I shake my head furiously, dislodging Deng’s grip. “I can’t. I can’t. Please don’t make me. I can’t bear-” I do not know what words to use to complete the sentence. The pain? The guilt? To be so disastrously, vulnerably open? Is it worth being connected if all it results in is loneliness again? ''Kai, I cry out internally. He cannot have left me. He, of all people, knows what it means when someone you love leaves. At least he would have said good-bye. Deep within me, less than a whisper, less than a breath, I hear a stirring that sounds like his voice: no one who truly loves you should hurt you. “You don’t have to decide right now,” Deng reassures me. “I gave You something to isolate You from the remaining Experiments. I thought You might want some space to think and be yourself. When You want, I can reverse it.” Perhaps it is only the echo that might have been Kai, but her tenderness turns me cold. When she hugs me again, I cannot move to respond. She does not seem to notice. In my ear, she whispers, “This way, You can make the decision in your own mind, without the burden of their pain and needs. Just think of us, You and me. Decide for us.” She releases me and smiles. All traces of fear have vanished from her face, leaving only the cool, immaculate Deng that I know. “I will be waiting.” |}